The Presence of a Fading Star: the Common Man's Belief

            My personal crux of the poem can be drawn from the beginning of the third part of the poem, specifically the stanza regarding the “dead land” and the “cactus land”: “Here the stone images/ Are raised, here they receive/ the supplication of a dead man’s hand, / under the twinkle of a fading star.” This image of spirits raising from their graves, to receive the forgiveness of Christ, only to have a distant, higher divine power act as a witness represents the simple, yet rather complex beliefs of a common man on earth. An ignorant man would accept this as the sole answer for the question: What comes after death?

            The most common words: Kingdom, Death’s, eyes, broken and men; are obviously repeated several times throughout The Hollow Men, in reference to Death’s various kingdoms, the constant presence of the eyes, the various broken images and the hollow, empty and stuffed men. The repetition of the word “kingdom” compares to my personal crux by alluding to the different theories of the afterlife. None of these speculations can be confirmed, yet the men on earth (generally) settle for one idea. It differs from my crux because the majority the words used in the passage above are not repeated very often; making the most common afterlife idea not very common within the context of The Hollow Men.